“That’s true,” I said, coming to a stop sign. “Where am I going?”
“Take a left up there at the wrought iron bench, and then drive straight until you see a blue horse with a gold-speckled mane.”
I turned to look at him.
“I’m sorry, but if you’re expecting to get things like proceed west for five kilometers out of me, you’re simply out of luck.”
“What about take a left here and then a right on Main Street, or something like that.”
“I don’t know streets,” he apprised me. “It’s so much clutter to keep in one’s mind. Far easier to be visual and say go left at the giant red squirrel.”
“And if those stupid landmarks get removed?”
“Why would they ever be removed?” Delly sounded horrified.
“The bench has been there for years,” Sian chimed in from the back, her tone almost sad. “It’s not going anywhere.”
I checked my rearview mirror. “You all right?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. Just a bit of morning sickness.”
My heart dropped because I had a terrible thought. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah, why?”
I cleared my throat. “Sweetheart, you didn’t go in any of the meth houses, did you?”
“Oh no,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “Benji said how bad the first one smelled—that’s where I got the nose singeing thing—and didn’t let me go in.”
“Smart,” I praised him.
“Thank you,” he said, squeezing my forearm.
“I’ve been careful to keep Elmo’s exposure to anything I wasn’t sure about at zero,” Sian explained. “It’s safest that way.”
“And how bad is the morning sickness?”
“Like by volume of barf or frequency?”
“Okay,” I said quickly, taking a breath. “If you reach behind you into the small zippered front pocket of the duffel, there’s a baggie of homemade ginger cookies in there. My mom makes them for me before I fly because the takeoffs and landings make me a little queasy.”
“Oh, I’m not hungry. I––”
“The ginger in the cookies will help with the morning sickness,” I told her.
A beat of time passed. “It will?”
I nodded.
“Are you serious?” she asked, her voice dropping as though making certain I wasn’t screwing with her.
“You won’t be sorry.”
Delly did the scrambling as I took the left and began down a smaller street, now on the lookout for a horse.
“What happens when snow covers your visual markers?” I asked Benji.
“That’s for others to worry about,” he assured me. “I don’t drive.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t own a car, and I don’t get behind the wheel of anyone else’s.”
“You never drive?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Years ago I was in a dreadful accident and spent a couple of years learning how to walk again,” he explained, and I noticed then that he was still holding on to my forearm, seemingly content not to move.
As a rule, I was only comfortable with people I knew well touching me for extended periods of time. A handhold here, a pat there, that was fine, especially from mothers, but anything longer than that I had to like you more than a little. My personal space, apart from family and friends, was important. All my nieces and nephews climbed on me, sat in my lap, the younger ones held my hand with their sticky ones, and the older ones tended to lean against me when they were imparting some secret. The fact that a stranger had his hand right above my wrist and wasn’t letting go should have bothered me. Just like it should have bugged me when we were walking arm and arm. It was strange that it didn’t, and when I had a second, I needed to figure out why.
“You never told me you were in an accident,” Sian commented between bites of my mother’s cookies. “I had no idea.”
“It’s hard to talk about,” he replied, turning to the right to look out the window.
Weird that he’d shared something with me he hadn’t told his friends before.
“I have to be terribly relaxed to share,” he admitted. “It’s so odd it just popped out.”
I had no idea what he meant. He couldn’t possibly be at ease with me; he didn’t even know me. “Ah-hah,” I announced, spotting the horse, the eyes much too big, making it look deranged. It was a very bright blue, though, with a long, flowing gold mane. “Now what?”
“Right at the horse and then left at Mr. Marzetti.”
I didn’t ask. What was the point? I was sure whatever the landmark looked like; I’d know it when I saw it. With the amount of rain coming down and how fast the wipers were going, the landmarks were actually easier to see than the street signs.
A pat on the shoulder made me lift my eyes to the rearview mirror, where I found Sian beaming at me. “Was I right? Do ya feel better?”
“Goddess, yes,” she acknowledged with a sigh. “That’s amazing. Do all ginger cookies work, or only your mother’s?”